Monday, June 08, 2015

This is so big; if Sally and the kids have heard me say it once . . .: The pigs get fat; the hogs get slaughted: Turkish Election Sinks Erdogan’s Bid to Cement Power - Islamist-rooted AKP loses majority as pro-Kurdish party clears threshold to enter parliament (I pray for stability)

All three opposition parties clubbed together to oppose Mr. Erdogan’s plans to shift Turkey, a key U.S. ally, from a parliamentary to a presidential system—a move he argued would increase government efficiency, but which they said would be a step toward dictatorship.

The vote also marked the start of an uncertain period of a coalition- or minority-led government. That prospect immediately rattled markets, sending the lira tumbling almost 4% to a record low of 2.75 against the dollar, as investors recalled decades past when short-lived multiparty governments led Turkey between recurrent economic crises.

Provisional ballot results showed the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, falling short of the votes needed to maintain its three-term stronghold in parliament. The party, which Mr. Erdogan led until his election to the nonpartisan presidency last August, secured less than 41% of the vote, according to state media, down from almost 50% in the previous general election.

That tally, the party’s weakest since sweeping to power in 2002, fell 18 seats short of the 276 needed to form a single-party government in Ankara’s 550-member parliament. While the figures hadn’t yet been confirmed by the electoral commission, all three opposition parties said they wouldn’t partner with the AKP in a coalition.

Swaths of AKP support defected to the election’s big winners: the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, which comfortably bridged Turkey’s 10% electoral threshold. The breakthrough, which hands the party 79 seats, marks the first time a party rooted in Kurdish nationalism has entered the Turkish parliament.

The rising challenge to Mr. Erdogan’s political supremacy raises the specter of a power struggle with the parliamentary government if the president continues trying to wield broad executive powers from his largely ceremonial office. It could also raise uncertainty over key Turkish foreign policy issues, including Ankara’s support for Islamist rebel groups in Syria and tepid support to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State—both of which have sparked tensions with Washington and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

“This was a major defeat for Erdogan and it could usher in a period of heightened instability and confused policy,” said Henri Barkey, former Turkey analyst at the U.S. State Department now at Lehigh University. “Erdogan is a boxer who is down but not out. His increasingly anti-Washington rhetoric has taken its toll, and the Obama administration will now be in wait and see mode to see what kind of government emerges from this confusion.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. would continue its close political, economic and security cooperation with Turkey.

Mr. Erdogan, who placed himself at the center of a fractious and sometimes violent campaign, made no comment immediately after the results on Sunday.

As the Turkish president zigzagged the country for a month, holding rallies billed as opening ceremonies in an attempt to preserve his constitutional impartiality, he deployed bellicose rhetoric to attack his political enemies and convince voters to back his bid for more authority. competing for airtime with opposition leaders and his own prime minister, Mr. Erdogan repeatedly attacked the Western press and issued warnings that a foreign-led conspiracy was seeking to halt Turkey’s re-emergence as a great power, a century after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

In response, opposition parties railed against Mr. Erdogan and the government for corrupting the state and resorting to autocratic moves to stifle dissent and erode the rule of law. As the campaign moved to a crescendo, there were violent attacks on all parties, culminating in the twin bombings of an HDP rally in the majority kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir that left two people dead and more than 100 injured.

The surprise scale of the AKP’s slide raised immediate questions over the political future of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who said during the campaign that he would resign as party chairman if he failed to win the elections. In a speech from the AKP headquarters in Ankara, Mr. Davutoglu was defiant, painting his performance as a victory.

The ruling party’s campaign was beset by problems that contrasted with the slick management and discipline of earlier races. One paradox was that Mr. Erdogan, who wasn’t running in the election but was center stage throughout the campaign, hurt the party’s support as he assertively pushed to rally votes.

Policy divisions between Messrs. Erdogan and Davutoglu, particularly on the proposed change to give the presidency more power, became more evident throughout the campaign. Further, a slowdown in the $800 billion economy, coupled with broader emerging markets selloff, undermined one of the AKP’s main strengths: financial stability and strong growth.

Mr. Erdogan is likely to remain Turkey’s dominant political figure, thanks to his political acumen and broad support among Turkey’s conservatives. But even in Uskudar, the staunchly pro-AKP district of Istanbul where Mr. Erdogan keeps a house, the bruising campaign has jarred with many of his supporters.

“We’ve been seeing the AKP hegemony growing since 2010,” said Omer Faruk Eksi, a 38-year-old executive from Uskudar who voted AKP in every election since 2002 but on Sunday cast his ballot for an independent candidate. “We’re losing all of Turkey’s democratic gains,” he said.

The AKP’s electoral setback could offer a glimmer of hope to Turkey’s long-sidelined opposition after two years marked by crackdowns against dissent, bureaucratic purges and sporadic protests. It also marks a new phase for the long-marginalized Kurdish party, which is emerging as a mainstream opposition player with a broadening support base.

“Those who saw themselves as Turkey’s sole owners have lost,” said Selahattin Demirtas, the HDP’s Kurdish co-chair who engineered the party’s rise in the polls. “At this moment, discussions of a dictatorship in Turkey have come to an end; thankfully, Turkey is back from the brink.”

As a sign of growing frustration with the increasingly polarizing politics of the ruling AKP, the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, also increased its votes, winning more than 16% in this election compared with 13% in the 2011 ballot.

Meanwhile, the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, saw its support drop to about 25% from 26% in the previous national poll, as the HDP appealed to some of its liberal and left-wing voters.

“I voted for the HDP for the first time. Given Turkey’s dynamics today, I believe this is what’s needed,” said Nilufer, a 50-year-old doctor in Istanbul who declined to provide her last name. “My expectation now is to have a more livable country, under more humane conditions, where people understand and tolerate each other.”

The risk of renewed escalation of violence in Turkey’s southeast also receded with the HDP’s entry to parliament, as Mr. Demirtas had threatened civil disobedience in the event that his party failed to clear the electoral threshold. That would have threatened to derail fragile peace talks to end a three-decade Kurdish insurgency, where some 40,000 people have been killed.

Another driver of the HDP’s surge in the polls was the issue of Kobani, a town in Syria across the Turkish border, where Kurdish militias last year repelled Islamic State after a monthslong fight that captivated the world.

Ankara initially refused military help to the Syrian Kurds, fueling anger and deadly protests in Turkey’s southeast. That also cost the ruling AKP significant votes as Kurdish voters in Turkey’s southeast shifted their votes to the HDP.

“My family has been voting for the AKP until now, but because of Kobani, everyone will vote for HDP,” said Cengiz, a 38-year-old tobacco trader from the southeastern province of Adiyaman. “This government just watched as Islamic State kidnapped and enslaved Kurdish girls in Syria; we are honorable people, we won’t stand for this.”